An idea of the import of fig. 70, 1, seems gained when it is remembered that in Egyptian the word house=pi, pir or per, was [pg 423] associated with the title of ruler, the name Pharaoh being derived from per=āa=great house. What is more, the word house=pir or pi, is used in astronomical texts, like the Arabian beth, in relation to stars, it being said of a star that “it ever comes forth from its house”=appears (Brugsch).
The permanent image of the disk and serpent, a form of the Ra sign, in the doorway of the sculptured house, would thus convey the idea of the eternal presence of Amen-Ra, the pole-star god. The accentuation of the cross lines on the neck of the ara indicates, moreover, the intentional allusion to four-fold and two-fold force, the latter being expressed by the eyes of the serpent. The door=ptah, which is open, expresses the name Ptah=the Opener, well known as that of the “father of the gods” and a form of Amen-Ra.
The positions assigned to Osiris and Isis, at either side of the “hidden god,” sufficiently shows that they were intended to represent separate incorporations of the male and female principles which were united in Amen-Ra, the “divine Twain.” The association of both deities with the throne, the eternal seat of repose, identifies both alike with Polaris. A monument in the Berlin Museum (no. 261) which was found in the temple of Isis at Ben-naga, in Nubia, and was a votive offering made by the Ethiopian king Netek-Amen and his consort Amen-Tari, contains the following formula, translated by Lepsius, which associates Isis with eternal enthronement. “Thou remainest, thou remainest, on thy great throne, O Isis, queen of Au-ker, like the sun (Ra) that lives in the horizon ... and thou lettest thy son Netek-Amen flourish on his throne....”
The fact I am about to demonstrate, that the king and queen of Egypt were the respective, “the living images” of Osiris and Isis, proves that, as in ancient Peru and China, the sovereigns, who were at the same time high priest and priestess, were considered as the sacred embodiments of the dual principles of nature. As elsewhere also, a chain of associations became attached to each of the dualities; but in Egypt, as may be clearly discerned, during the lapse of centuries great transformations of thought took place and alternately the male and female elements seem to have been associated with the cults of heaven and earth, light and darkness, sun or moon, morning or evening stars, the southeast and the northwest.
[pg 424]In the sacred writings the sun is usually termed “the right eye” and the moon “the left eye” of Ra (cf. hra=the (divine) face). Brugsch points out that, in certain inscriptions at Denderah translated by Mariette, “the Sothis star of Hathor-Isis is designated as ‘the right eye of Ra’ while the sun is termed the left eye.”
Brugsch states, moreover, that, according to Sextus Empiricus, “the Egyptians compared the king to the ‘right eye’ or the sun; while the queen was compared to the ‘left eye’ or the moon.” The two eyes, often with the designation of “right” or “left,” constitute a favorite decoration on funeral stelæ. In some instances the image of the solar disk, with one wing and one serpent only, is figured as a substitute for the right eye (op. cit. ii, 436, see fig. 62, 6). The established fact that the eyes of Ra were the equivalents of the uræi usually accompanying the circle of Ra, the so-called “solar disk,” is further explained by the following data.
It is well known that the two uræi on the royal diadem denote sovereignty over Upper and Lower Egypt. In the bas-relief published by Brugsch, the circle or Ra-sign is represented with two uræi, which respectively wear the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt (fig. 70, 7). The crowned uræi recur in the emblems of Upper and Lower Egypt published by Mr. Goodyear, the first accompanied by the lotus flower and the second by what Egyptologists usually identify as the papyrus, but which appears to be the ripened pod of the lotus (fig. 70, 9 and 10). While the two uræi thus emblematized the two divisions of the land of Egypt they are found as distinctly associated with Osiris and Isis, and their living images the king and queen, or the high priest and high priestess of Amen-Ra. The Berlin Museum contains several representations of Isis under the form of a serpent with a woman's head (see official catalogue, nos. 7740, 870 and 2529). Osiris is also represented as a serpent with the head of a bearded man.
A small shrine in the form of a temple, and decorated with royal serpents, is preserved at the Berlin Museum (catalogue no. 8164) and contains the effigies of two uræi, one of which, to the left of the spectator, exhibits the head of Isis, the second, to the right, the features of Osiris. Between them stands the vase or bowl which was a constant feature of Isis cult.
In connection with this monument it is interesting to examine an inscription published by Brugsch (i, p. 108) in which occur two [pg 425] serpents who are pouring liquid into a bowl placed between them and the divided halves of the sky-sign (fig. 70, 8). The text connects this with the New Year festival when the Nile began to rise “from its two sources” and the “union of heaven and earth” took place, which will be discussed later. The following temporary list briefly presents a summary of the preceding data which is rendered more complete by the addition of the signs and emblems of the festivals, when the “conjunction of sun and moon took place,” figured by the picture of two persons united by their respective right and left hands (fig. 70, 5) or by the tet column placed between two horns (fig. 70, 4). As may be seen by numerous examples in Brugsch (vol. ii), the great Sed festival is figured by the image of the small sanctuary which existed on the flat roof of the great temple at Denderah, and resembled an open pavilion with four columns which is usually represented as containing two seats placed back to back (fig. 70, 2, 3). A small picture in Mr. Wallis Budge's Nile exhibits the king and queen occupying such a double throne, respectively, wearing the insignia and crowns of Osiris and Isis and holding their sceptres, as in the representations of the ceremony of laying the foundation of a temple, in their right and left hands (fig. 70, 6). The résumé of the preceding material produces the following list:
Right eye of Ra: Left eye of Ra.
Sun: Moon.
King: Queen.
Osiris: Isis.
High priest: High priestess.
Right hand sceptre: Left hand sceptre.
North: South.
Red crown: White crown.
The following data, gleaned from the valuable works of Prof. A. H. Sayce and the serial History of Egypt, written by Prof. Flinders Petrie, J. P. Mahaffy and J. G. Milne, furnish strong indications that, in the remotest past, the two divisions of the land of Egypt were respectively governed by a male and female sovereign; a proof that, before the time of Menes, the ancient empire had become disintegrated, and undergone a long period of intense strife and warfare. We learn from Professor Sayce of the probability that “the city of Nek-hen was once the capital of the south and that the vulture, the symbol of the south, was also the emblem [pg 426] of Nekheb, the goddess of the great fortress, the ruins of which lie opposite to Nekhen on the eastern bank of the Nile” (Sayce, op. cit. pp. 152, 191).
While the capital and the emblem of southern or Upper Egypt are thus directly associated with a “goddess,” further data show us that the ancient queens of Egypt were termed “god-women or goddesses.” When the New Empire was founded (1600-1100 B.C.) with its capital at Thebes, King Ahmes assumed the sovereignty of the whole of Egypt, but seems to have shared supreme authority with his consort Ah-mes-nefretere=divine- or god-woman, also termed “the high priestess of Amen.” From the honors accorded to her and to her son Amen-hetep or Amenophis I, it must indeed be inferred that she possessed some inherited sovereign right to one of the ancient divisions of the empire.
During the period of the 26th dynasty, of Saïs, we find Upper Egypt governed by a “god-woman,” Shep-en-upet, who remained in power, even after the land had been conquered by Psammetichus I. The latter obtained, however, that his daughter Nitocris was adopted as the successor to the “divine-woman” ruler of Thebes, and she in turn adopted the daughter of Psammetichus II (B.C. 594-589), whose name was Anches-nefer-eb-re. A tablet from the temple of Karnak, preserved at the Berlin Museum (catalogue no. 2112) represents this female sovereign of Thebes accompanied by her prime minister, and standing in the presence of the gods Amen and Chon.
Another remarkable monument at the Berlin Museum (no. 7972) figures the “god-woman” Shep-en-upet, under the form of a sphinx holding a vase, and records that she had inherited the sovereignty of Thebes from her aunt, the consort of an Ethiopian king. An extremely interesting proof that the beard, per se, constituted an emblem of sovereignty, is furnished by a beautiful portrait statue of the “divine woman,” Hat-shepset (Berlin Museum, no. 2299). She is figured as a sphinx and wears a beard suspended from her head-dress.116 The serpent decorates her diadem. On other monuments this remarkable queen, who built the temple of Der-el-Bahari, is figured with the crown of Upper Egypt (cf. no. 2279, Berlin Museum). By good fortune the personal gold ornaments of a [pg 427] “divine woman,” an Ethiopian princess, were discovered by Ferlini in the pyramid of Begerauie, enclosed in a plain bronze vase. These precious objects are now exhibited in the Berlin Museum, where I have examined them and noted with interest that the central ornament of two finely worked, broad gold bracelets, is a female figure with the royal diadem and four outstretched arms, to which wings are attached. This furnishes us with an instance of a queen being represented with four wings, in exactly the same manner as the Assyrian king Sargon, on the seal from the time of Sennacherib (fig. 65, 6), namely, as a “ruler of the four quarters,” which indicates that she held the position of a “central ruler.” As might be expected in the case of a queen who personified Isis, frequently represented under the form of a “woman-serpent,” the uræus is a favorite motif on other gold ornaments belonging to the Ethiopian queen.
Certain passages in Prof. Flinders Petrie's History of Egypt afford a curious insight into the prerogatives of Egyptian queens as far back as about B.C. 2684. The consort of Usertesen II, the fourth king of the twelfth dynasty was named Nefert,of whom a grey granite statue is preserved at the Ghizeh Museum and represents her as seated on a throne. On this are the titles “The hereditary princess, the great favorite, the greatly praised, the beloved consort of the king, the ruler of all women, the king's daughter of his body, Nefert.” Prof. Flinders Petrie adds: “The title ruler or princess of all women is peculiar, and suggests that the queen had some prerogatives of government as regards the female half of the population.” The title in question reappears four centuries later in connection with Nubkhas, the queen of Sebek=Emsaup, of the 13th dynasty and her stele in the Louvre entitles her the “great heiress, the greatly favored, the ruler of all women, the great royal wife, united to the crown Nub-kha-s” (op. cit., vol. i, pp. 175 and 225).
Between B.C. 1423-1414 queen Mutemua-arat appears as “the goddess queen” and “great royal wife” (Flinders Petrie op. cit., ii, p. 174). The consort of Amenhotep III (B.C. 1414-1379) the celebrated Tyi, the daughter of Yuaa and Thuaa, is entitled “princess of both lands,” and “chief heiress, princess of all lands.” Her successor Nefertiti is called “princess of south and north, lady of both lands,” which titles, as Prof. Flinders Petrie comments, “like the titles of Tyi, imply a hereditary right to [pg 428] rule Egypt.” They undoubtedly place her on a footing of equality with the king, which is, however, comprehensible when it is explained that she was the ruler of all women, while he was the ruler of all men. The position of the Egyptian queen would thus prove to have been analogous to that of the ancient Mexican Quilaztli (see pp. 61-67).
The analogy is all the more striking when it is realized that the titles of the Mexican chieftainess were: “the Woman warrior, the Woman of the Underworld or Below, the Woman serpent or female twin and the Eagle woman,” while the emblem of the Egyptian goddess-queen of the south was the vulture and she was the personification of Isis, represented under the form of a serpent, the twin of the male serpent, Osiris.
Much food for thought is furnished by a Syrian relief sculpture from Amrit (published by Spamer, see fig. 71, 2), which exhibits a vulture or eagle with outstretched wings, in juxtaposition to a winged disk which appears to combine features of the Assyrian winged disk (the bird's tail and two appendages, see fig. 71,1) with the two uræi of the Egyptian form (fig. 71, 3). It is striking how clear the symbolism of the latter becomes when interpreted (1) as the symbol of the hidden god and his male and female form, Osiris and Isis, accompanied by the wings symbolizing air and the [pg 429] idea that the deity was invisible and immaterial; (2) as the symbol of Egypt itself—an entity, a complete circle, divided into two parts, under two rulers. The pair of antelope horns above emphasize the fact that the twain were as a single pair. The combined crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, the latter exhibiting a serpent's head and the first, what appears to be its tail, constitute the symbol of joint rulership which, in this case, is accompanied by the feather, the rebus expressing the words “truth and justice.”
While the Syrian bas-relief conveys the idea of two separate kingdoms, one conveying the idea of single rulership, by the form of an eagle; the other of dual rulership, by the two uræi, each of which is crowned by a small disk; the Egyptian symbol distinctly conveys the idea of a close union of two distinct parts. The historical fact that Menes succeeded in uniting both lands under a single crown, indicates clearly enough that the ancient empire had become disintegrated and that by marrying the female ruler of the south he had reinstated the dual government on its original primitive basis. That, during the period of separation and independence, a powerful gynocracy had been formed seems more than probable. Just as evidences are met with in ancient Mexico of the existence of female communities, so the Old World furnishes accounts, deemed fabulous, of powerful gynocracies. Thus we have heard of the Amazons, the fabulous race of women warriors who are supposed to have founded a powerful empire on the coast of the Euxine.
A searching analysis of the texts translated by Brugsch, relating to the ceremonies performed at the New Year and famous Sed festivals, as well as historical facts gleaned from the works of living authorities, throw a light upon the position and sacred duties of the Egyptian queens during many centuries. The critical examination of a number of inscriptions, translated by Brugsch, is found to show that the queen was the high priestess and living image of Hathor-Isis and the personification of the female principle of nature, associated in Egypt with the nocturnal Heaven and the Above, and their symbols, the bird or vulture, the cow, the female serpent, the moon, the stars, and in particular Sirius-Sothis. In remotest historical times the goddess-queen seems to have resided in her own capital, a fortress. The universal necessity to insure the safety of women and children in times of warfare may well have originally led to the assignment of a separate, permanent [pg 430] place of residence, to the female portion of the population. The New Year festival, which coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius (20th July, Jul. Cal.) and the overflow of the Nile, which suspended outdoor activity, was generally celebrated throughout the land as the “union of heaven and earth,” or the conjunction of “the sun and the moon, or Sirius.”
It was customary that, at this period, the queen, personifying the Sothis star, should come forth from her retirement and, surrounded by pomp and majesty, meet the king in solemn state, publicly occupy her place on the double throne, and share in the performance of sacred religious rites. It is easy to see that the idea underlying the entire ceremonial was the harmonizing of the actions of the sacred personifications of the dual principles of nature with the natural phenomena, from which arose a strange confusion of ideas concerning the relationship between these consecrated individuals and the powers of nature, which culminated in the artificial belief that they were divinely appointed mediators between humanity and the supreme power.
There are clear indications that the consecrated nuptials of king and queen marked the Sed festival which was celebrated, at the beginning of every fourth year, at Denderah. Brugsch tells us that the place on the roof of the Hathor temple, where the celebration of the Sed festival took place, is specially designated as “the place of the first feast” and in many cases this is shown to have been the small open temple, whose roof is supported by four columns (fig. 70, 2 and 3). In one passage it is expressly stated that “she, Isis-Sothis, consorts with her father, the sun, at ‘the place of the first feast,’ ” represented by a picture of the said temple (fig. 70, 6).
It is interesting to compare the following passage with the successive one, as they exhibit different phases of religious cult. “In solemn procession statues of the god Ra and of Hathor-Isis (Sothis-Sirius) were carried up the stairs from the interior of the temple to its roof (the tep-hat or head of the house) where, under the open sky or in the small open temple on the roof designated as Hait at Denderah, the idols were unveiled at a given time....” “On the morn of the New Year Isis-Sothis ‘beheld her father on the beautiful day of the birth of the disk’ (mas-aten) or ‘the birth of the sun’ (mas-ra).” It is described how “the goddess was led upon the roof so that she might behold the rays of her [pg 431] father on his rising.... She is sometimes addressed directly, being told ‘that thou shouldst see thy father on the day of the New Year.’ ” In other texts allusion is made to the approach of Sirius to the sun on New Year's day: “her rays join (heter) with those of the radiant god on that beautiful day of the birth of the sun's disk in the morning of New Year's day:” or “thou consortest with thy father Ra in thy open temple, thy beautiful face being turned towards the south;” and elsewhere, “she comes on her beautiful festival of the New Year, to unite her greatness in heaven with that of her father; the gods are festive and the goddesses are full of joy when the right eye (Sirius) unites itself with the left eye (the sun). She rests upon her throne in the place where the disk of the sun can be seen and the radiant one (Isis-Sothis) combines herself with the radiant one (the sun).”
On one of the columns of the roof-temple at Denderah, the following text is inscribed: “This temple of Rekhit flourishes in possession of a lion (mahes) and of his daughter ... of the Horus of the east and of the goddess Khont-abut. They assume her heavenly form on New Year's day and each one consorts with his neighbor.” Preceding inscriptions are made more clear by the following detached passages translated by Brugsch, which merit careful study. “An inscription at Abydos makes the goddess Safkhet say to the king: ‘thou didst appear as king upon thy throne on the feast hib-seb; like the god Ra at the beginning of the year.’ ” “The high-priest of Ptah at Memphis was charged with the celebration of the Sed festival, which was a general festival throughout the land.” “The annual going of the Hathor of Denderah to Edfu took place in the month Epiphi.” “The goddess Hathor-Isis of Denderah is frequently called the second female sun next to the sun's disk, the many colored, feathered goddess, and is identified with Isis-Sothis.”
According to an extremely ancient belief it was the goddess Hathor Isis-Sothis who caused the inundation of the Nile which, according to the inscriptions, coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius. Owing to this circumstance she is called, “Isis the great, the mother of god, who causes the Nile to overflow when she shines at the commencement of the year,” or “the female sun who appears at the beginning of the year in the heaven as the divine Sothis star, the queen of the decan stars, whose rays illuminate the earth like those of the sun which appears in the morning. She is [pg 432] the mistress of the commencement of the year, who draws the Nile out of its source and thus confers life upon living human beings.” Elsewhere she is termed “the mistress of the commencement of the year, who makes the Nile rise at its period.” It is likewise said of her “on her beautiful feast of beholding her father, the heaven unites itself with the earth and the right eye unites itself with the left eye, at the beginning of the year.” She is described as Isis the great, the mother of god, the lady of Adut in Anet, the mistress of the beginning of the year, the monarch of the Sema? who appears on New Year's day to usher in the new year. (She is) the goddess Ament (the hidden one) in Thebes, Menat (the nurse) in Heliopolis, Renpit (i. e. the year) in Memphis, the divine star Sothis in Elephantine, the radiant one in Apollinopolis magna, etc.
In another passage Hathor-Isis is spoken of as “the goddess Mehen-net of the light-god and his Ar-hatef=(she who acts as pilot) in the boat sektet, which eternally passes through the heaven over the head of her father.” On the north wall of the Prondos of the Denderah temple Isis-Hathor is called “Hathor, the lady of Anet; Isis herself; the eye of Ra; the great one of Tentyra; the lady of heaven; the queen of gods and goddesses; the great Mat ... the female sun; the first in Tentyra; the true one amongst gods; the young; the daughter of a young ... [?] the beauty who appears in heaven; the truth which regulates the world at the prow of the bark of the sun; the queen and mistress of awe; the mistress of goddesses, Isis, the great, the mother of the god.”
The following texts from Brugsch are explicit enough: “The temple of Tentyra is fitted up for a bride, and is occupied by a bride.” “The temple of Tentyra is in bridal array and contains a bride on the beautiful festival of the birth of the sun.” “The temple of Tentyra is fitted up for a bridal and is in possession of a bride on her beautiful festival of the birth of the sun (mas-ra).”
The birth of a male or female Horus, of a young sun or moon, is alluded to in other texts as the “feast of the child in its cradle,” and coincided with New Year's day. According to Brugsch, the festival of the child in its ses=cradle, nest, or couch, undoubtedly coincided with New Year's day, as is proven by the following inscription: “The bringing of the band of stuff to the great Isis, the mother of the god, for the obtainment of a happy year. Receive, receive happy years on the day of the night of the child in [pg 433] its cradle!”... It is usual to interpret the birth of the young child, or sun of the New Year as a mere allegory of the astronomical fact and it may have been thus in later times. On the other hand, historical data prove that the actual birth of a “child,” the offspring of a royal sacramental marriage, did take place in the temple and that children, thus born, afterwards became the rulers of Egypt.
“At Luqsor, ... a great temple was built by Amenhotep III (B.C. 1414-1379) to ‘his father Amen,’ with special reference to the divine conception of the king.... His birth is the great subject of the temple ... and his mother Mut-em-ua is the prominent figure in those scenes, pointing to her being important as queen-mother....” Of the later king Hor-em-heb (B.C. 1332-1328) it is inscribed: “Amen, king of the gods, dandled him ... when he came forth from the womb he was enveloped in reverence, the aspect of a god was upon him; the arm was bowed to him as a child and great and small did obeisance before him ” (Flinders Petrie, op. cit. pp. 177, 190 and 248).
The small Isis temple to the east of the great temple of Hathor at Denderah is specially designated as the lying-in chamber, or sacred house of birth. An inscription dating from the Roman period, on the outer eastern wall of this building reads: “Life! the female Horus, the youthful, the daughter of a hak (regent, Brugsch), Isis, the great, the mother of the Ra=god, is born in Tentyra in the ‘night of the child in its cradle,’ at the west side of the temple of Hat-seses (the great temple of Hathor).” It is, moreover, stated that “Horus, in female form, is the princess, the powerful, the heiress to the throne and the daughter of an heir to the throne.”
In another inscription, on the south wall of the small temple of Isis, the birth of Isis is described thus: “On this beautiful day, ‘of the night of the child in its cradle,’ on the great festival during which the world is re-adjusted, or balanced (sekhek en ta), the bringing forth of Isis takes place in the interior or centre of Anet (Tentyra) by the goddess Ap, the great, in the chamber of Ap, in the form of a dark red female person, the Khnum ankh, the lovely. Her mother, Nut, exclaimed at the sight of her: behold, (As is) I have become a mother. Thence the origin of the name Isis.... The south, towards the place of rising of the sun's disk, has been given over to her, and the north, towards.... [pg 434] She is, namely, the mistress of both sides of Egypt, with her son Horus and her brother Osiris.”
On the east side of the wall of the terrace at Denderah a similar inscription reads: “Uar-kher-ta is the name of this locality. The name of the place of the cradle of Isis is named Adut, which is the house where the ‘accouchement’ of Nut, the goddess of heaven, takes place. It is here that, at the time of the ‘night of the child in its cradle,’ the god-mother is brought into the world, in the form of a dark female, named Khnum-ankhet, the lady of love and the queen of the gods and goddesses. On seeing her, her mother exclaimed: As, îs i. e. lo, or behold, I have become a mother! Thence the origin of her name Isis.... She is the lady of the temple of Egypt with her son Horus and brother Osiris, now and forever into eternity.” The most instructive account of the festival which has come under my notice is the following, contained in another inscription in the temple at Denderah.
“The fourth day, supplementary to the year (of 360 days, i. e. the 364th day) is the beautiful day of the ‘night of the child in its cradle’ and is a great festival of preparation. During the night preceding this day there takes place the procession of the goddess Hathor and the divinities with her. The circuit of her temple is made and all is duly fulfilled according to the custom. Upon this follows the return to their places (chambers in the temple). The golden one (Nubet, the ordinary appellation of Hathor-Isis as the star Sothis-Sirius, Brugsch) rises, shining, above the brow of her progenitor, and her mysterious (literally, full of secrets) form is at the prow of the boat of the sun. As soon as she reaches the āk (centre) of her city in the presence of her Nomos, she beholds her dwelling with the most joyful feelings. When she enters her house her body is full of delight. When she has taken possession of her exalted dwelling, surrounded by her fellow-gods, who stand at each side of her, her soul in her body is full of rejoicings. When they join the rays of her father (the sun god) and are united to the radiance of his disk, the city Anet (Tentyra) is happy. Adoration is made in Adut (the lying-in chamber) and Pi-anet is in festive state, when it beholds the great, the powerful leader, she who creates the festival in the holy city on that beautiful day of the New Year.”
Elsewhere we read: “The city of Anet is in a constant exaltation when the goddess Isis is born in it (in the small Isis temple) in the [pg 435] form of a dark red woman, whose name is Khnum-Ankhet, the lady of love, the queen of goddesses and women, the bride. It is beautiful to see the shining appearance of the ray of light in the heaven, in the dusk, at the time when she is born in this city.... A flying beetle (?) is born in the sky in the primæval city of Tentyra at the period of ‘the night of the child in its cradle.’ The sun shines in the heaven at dusk when her birth has taken place. Gods and goddesses praise the name of her majesty....” “Ra-Hur of Apollinopolis magna, god Sam-ta, comes forth, or arises, in the dawn (akhekh) when the birth takes place in ‘the night of the child in its cradle,’ on the great festival of the entire world (or the entire land). He shines for her majesty when she has brought forth (the child). Her child is in the form of a beautiful boy, who is the lord of Tentyra. The gods and goddesses came to her carrying the symbol of life (the ankh) and the sceptre of power (the tam) so as to fulfil their desire and her wish” (p. 103).
The following extract from a papyrus which belonged to a priest of Amon, named Horsiesis of Thebes, of the time of Augustus, affords an extremely interesting insight of the mysterious ceremonial which had gradually developed. It is evident that the text, though apparently clear, must have been intelligible to the initiated only, who alone were able to understand the allusions to secret, sacred rites and their symbolical meaning.
“Thou raisest thyself to heaven, in the region of the city Ka ... thou goest with the king when he goes to Thebes ... thou seest the Sktt bark on its arrival in the city of Thebes and the two sisters united in Pi-ubkt ... thou seest the goddess Hathor who becomes the mother of her own mother117 on the day ... of the Tx festival ... thy name is called amongst those of the judges on the great Hermopolis in the night of the festival of he who remains [pg 436] in the middle or centre of his city ... thou seest the immovable ones united into a quatuor, in form like a young bull ... thou seest their wives united together in the form of the goddess Anthat ... thou visitest the caves of Thebes when his majesty betakes himself to the zone of Smu.... The mistress of heaven comes to her house ... thou receivest a cloak from his hand ... the divine eye ... thou watchest at night in the chamber of birth on the day of the [lying in] birth of the goddess Mut....[Nut?] Thou goest in with those who go in and comest out with those who come out like the great Horus in his temple ... thou seest in her domain(?) mysterious actions performed by the Pastophores. No one sees, no one hears (of them) ... thou hearest the voice of the singer in the temple, in varied modulations ... thou ascendest the stairway of the eternal circle of light, thou seest the strong ram in its domain ... thou seest ... in his first form, Osiris, in the house of purification.” (Brugsch, op. cit. ii, pp. 518 and 520).
A careful perusal of the preceding texts conveys an idea of the immense lapse of time it must have required for the state religion of Egypt to have developed itself and crystallized into a complicated ritual, the true significance of which, doubtlessly, gradually receded from view. The naïve primitive symbolization of the union of heaven and earth by the actual marriage of king and queen, followed by general marriage festivities, had naturally created, in course of time, a distinct privileged caste rendered “divine” by the circumstances attending their conception and birth. Once in existence the maintenance and insurance of the divine line of descent would naturally enforce the intermarriage of its members and the sequestration and guarded seclusion of the royal women and the virgin priestesses from whose ranks the destined mothers of the divine children were selected.
A more ancient form of symbolizing the union of heaven and earth seems to have been the cult of Apis, which, according to Maspero, preceded the building of the pyramids and could scarcely have arisen before the adoption of the cow or bull, ua, as the rebus of Polaris, the One=ua. A survival of Apis cult seems to be the allegorical sacred title “bull” (Osiris-Apis) bestowed upon the king, of “cow” upon the queen and “calf” upon their offspring, the young Horus. In later times the king was entitled “the ram” and wore his fleece and horns on visiting the queen. As a natural [pg 437] sequence, the fruit of their union was spoken of as “the lamb.” According to Herodotus (ii, pp. 27-29, Cary's translation), “the sacred Apis, or Epaphus is the calf of a cow incapable of conceiving another offspring; and the Egyptians say that lightning descends upon the cow from heaven and that from thence it brings forth Apis.” “The Egyptian magistrates said ... the god [in the form of Apis] manifested himself at distant intervals ... and when this manifestation took place the Egyptians immediately put on their richest apparel and kept festive holiday.”
As stated by Mr. Wallis Budge, Apis worship was established at Memphis by Ka-kau, the second king of the second dynasty B.C. 4100. The veneration accorded to the bull, cow and calf, as embodiments of the dual principles of nature, in separate and in single form, seems to have been accorded in other localities to different animal forms and to have been replaced, in later times, by triads, composed of a god, goddess and their offspring, each great centre ultimately possessing their particular triad, the living images of which were the high-priest, high-priestess and their “divine” offspring. It should be noted that a group consisting of 8+1=nine gods, high priests or prophets, accompanied the triad, the result being twelve “deities” in all, of which one=the child, was an embodiment of two principles and was the ka=the divine twain.
The transition of Apis worship from the animal to the human form was accomplished during the reign of the Ptolemies (B.C. 305-42) when Serapis or Osiris-Apis was introduced into Egypt and represented as a man with the head of a bull, wearing a disk and uræus. Long before this, however, androsphinxes and other combinations of the human and animal form had existed in Egypt. At Thebes the divine triad was formed by Amen-Ra, Mut-Hathor and Chonsu; at Edfu and Denderah we find Osiris, Isis-Sothis-Hathor and Horus. On the other hand, a curious inscription in the temple at Denderah, translated by Brugsch (ii, p. 512), actually describes Amen-Ra as “the great god in Denderah, who periodically rejuvenates himself and becomes a beautiful boy, who is the concealed or hidden god, whose name is hidden; who is the Horus with colored wings, coming forth in the upper hemisphere of Edfu, the lord of the double heaven.”
The inference one might be tempted to make from this and other texts is that, at one period, a human babe, the fruit of a [pg 438] royal or sacerdotal union, was born in the temple on what constituted New Year's Day and was secretly worshipped there during the ensuing year, as the living image of Amen-Ra, the hidden god and “divine twain.” I venture to point out that the adoption of the child as the image of the divinity was the logical sequence to the preceding employment of the bull as a rebus for the words ua=one and ka=twain; that the consecration of the human form must, undoubtedly, have given a strong impulse to statuary, and that the sanctification of the child correspondingly exalted motherhood and lent a particular consecration to the marriage of its “divine parents.” The following facts, culled at random, afford a limit of the transitions and further developments which took place in Egypt in course of time.
Before proceeding, special mention must be made of one important point which throws a flood of light upon the extent of the development of separate cults of sun and moon and the institution of solar and lunar calendars which respectively governed the activities of the male and female populations. As this matter will be fully treated in my calendar monograph I shall merely note here that Brugsch cites texts proving the existence and simultaneous use of the two calendars, and the supreme importance accorded to the new moon of the month Epiphi on whose appearance the “goddess Isis-Hathor of Denderah embarked on her sacred barge and proceeded up the river, from her city to Edfu (Apollinopolis magna) where she joined his majesty ..., her father, ... the incomparable sun-god Ra, the first of Apollinopolis, the golden disk, whose children are numerous....” It is further stated that the god and goddess became inseparable like sun and moon. Brugsch states that the appearance of the said new moon, which was also associated with the heliacal rising of Sirius, would range from Aug. 18 to Sept. 16, Jul. Cal. (see op. cit. ii, pp. 282-1). The appearance of the goddess was the signal for the opening of a season of general “feasting and drinking, rejoicing, singing and dancing” throughout the land, to which the name Tekhu is given in some texts. This is translated by Brugsch as “the intoxication of gladness or joy;” it “coincided with the highest level attained by the overflow of the Nile,” and its modern survival is the annual “marriage of the Nile” which takes place on the 23d of August.
It is curious to note how the original carrying out of primitive and naïve rites by the queen and high-priestess gradually caused [pg 439] her presence to be regarded as essential for the “drawing out of the Nile from its source” and her person to be surrounded with utmost veneration and sanctity. As Prof. Flinders Petrie states, speaking of as far back as B.C. 1383-1365: “The marriage to a royal high priestess of Amen was, of course, purely a political necessity to legitimate the king's position.”
“It would seem that Hor-em-heb was not married to Nezem-mut until his accession, when he legalized his position by becoming husband of the high-priestess of Amen, as in the arrangement of the later dynasties. This marriage was an affair of politics solely, considering the age of the parties; Horemheb was probably between fifty and sixty at the time and if the queen was the same as Nefertiti's sister Nezem-mut, she must have been about the same age as Horemheb” (op. cit. pp. 183, 250). How long the female Egyptian ruler maintained her sway may, perhaps, best be seen by the following texts describing the political homage paid to the living goddess of the Egyptians under Ptolemaic and Roman rules.
One inscription clearly shows that, at the time of Ptolemy IX, Euergetes II, the living Isis was acknowledged as the sole ruler of the land of the south by the king and his wife, queen Cleopatra III, who jointly occupied the throne of northern Egypt. Jointly the latter dedicated a beautiful hall to the goddess Isis, as a place in which to celebrate the Tekhu feast and in which she might linger at this season (Brugsch, op. cit. ii, p. 284). I have found indications in other works that, in other localities, the goddess entered a secret chamber in the earth or pyramid or celebrated her sacred mysteries and festival on the sacred boat of the sun, in the sacred sea or lake belonging to the temple. In these cases it is obvious that the dominant idea was the performance of the sacred rites in the sacred centre or middle.
At a later period Cleopatra VII ascended the female throne at the age of seventeen and became high-priestess of Amen, the living image of Isis. It was understood that as soon as her brother Ptolemy XIV, then aged twelve, should come of age, she was to marry him. Partly for political reasons, akin to those which had caused king Horemheb, on his accession, to marry the high priestess of Amen, Julius Cæsar and Mark Antony become in succession the consorts of Cleopatra, after whose death Egypt became a Roman province. But the “land of the south,” and traditional, [pg 440] divine, feminine rulership, lingered on. Under the third prefect, Ælius Gallus, Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, invades Egypt at the head of her army. She was defeated, but the position of the high-priestess of Amen, the living Isis, continued to be such as to exact the homage and an act of propitiation from the Roman Emperor.
An inscription, from the time of Augustus, records that a beautiful monument, or “house,” had been erected by the “lord of the land, the autocrator, the son of the sun, Cæsar,” and was presented, at the time of the Isis festival, to its possessor, the great Isis, the mother of the god, the mistress of the lying-in-house, the splendid and mighty queen of Philæ, the benevolent princess of Abaton, the daughter of the sun. She is likewise named “she who is great or whose greatness extends towards the four quarters” and is designated as “the royal wife of the majesty of Osiris and the royal mother of Horus, the victorious bull,” i. e. the ka. It is stated that “she found the house of birth brilliantly adorned and well arranged in every way” and she installed herself in its interior on a given day, so as to bring forth her son in these surroundings. One of the rewards promised to Cæsar for the delicate attention and gift bestowed upon the goddess is “eternal and permanent occupation of the throne of Horus, the first of the living ones.” According to the Esne calendar a “divine birth” actually took place on a given date. Brugsch, referring to Plutarch and calendar texts, shows that the commencement of the Isis festival dated from the time when Isis assumed a phylactery, or amulet, to indicate that she had conceived.
Another inscription shows that Tiberius Claudius had caused the house to be renovated for “the mighty goddess Isis, the life giving mistress of Abaton, the good Hathor, the queen of the land of Nubia, the divine mother of the golden (Nub) Horus, the benevolent sister of Osiris, the great protectress who guards his son.” As Tiberius Claudius, in this text named himself her loving son, it is obvious that the day had passed away when solely her own divine son Horus would be the one legitimate and divine heir to the Egyptian throne. It is interesting to surmise what became of the children whose “divine births” continued to be celebrated as a sacred occurrence to which even a Roman Emperor yielded homage. The natural sequence would have been that, accompanied by a band of devoted followers, the sons of the sun, the young bulls, [pg 441] i. e. the ka, or divine twain, and their sisters, would seek distant lands in which jointly to establish new kingdoms on the ancient, familiar plan.
Collectively, the preceding evidence has afforded a realization of some of the curious but natural results of the prolonged cult of the dual principles of nature in Egypt, the most remarkable being, perhaps, the creation of a distinct, “divine” caste of individuals, from the naïve adoption of marriage and birth as consecrated religious rites, symbolical of the union of heaven and earth and the production of new life. While at one time, and in certain localities, this mode of symbolism obviously took the upper hand and fostered the growth of the artificial idea of the “divine rights of royalty,” there are evidences that, simultaneously, the union of the dual principles of nature was symbolized in one or more different archaic and primitive ways. These appear to have been separately adopted in various centres of thought where the disastrous and debasing consequences of the association of the idea of sex with the cult of heaven and earth, light and darkness, etc., were realized with disapproval.
We thus find that, even at Edfu, the ceremonial rite of lighting new sacred fire by means of a wooden instrument and friction was performed on the great Isis festival which was marked by the “divine birth.” According to the calendar of Canopus this fell on the first day of Payni, and a prescribed illumination of the temples and palace was kept up until the 30th or last day of the month. In the most ancient Egyptian calendars the “lighting of light” at the same period is also recorded (Brugsch, op. cit. ii, p. 470) and, according to Herodotus, the festival was named “the lighting of lamps” and was observed throughout all Egypt. He adds that “a religious reason is given why this night is illuminated and so honored” (ii, 61 and 62).
The influence of increasing astronomical knowledge likewise shows itself in the joint observation of the movements of sun, moon and stars and the determination of the relative positions of the latter to the sun at the periods of the equinoxes and solstices. Without taking period or sequence into consideration for the present, I merely note that we find evidence that, at one time, images of sun and moon, of the right and left eyes of Ra, or statues of Hathor-Isis and Osiris, replaced their living images in religious ceremonies.
[pg 442]Sometimes the entire ritual seems to have consisted in the union of water, the produce of heaven, with seeds, the produce of earth; the ensuing germination and production of young shoots being deemed sacred and symbolical of the renewal of life. The fact that statuettes of Osiris have actually been found, made of paste containing various seeds, distinctly shows that, like the Babylonian Baal, the Egyptian male divinity was identified with the earth. Another indication of this is furnished by the descriptions of the feast of Pan, which fell at the period of the spring equinox. At this period the crop of dura, which had been sown by the king in the sacred fields at Denderah, at the time of the “Osiris mysteries,” immediately after the inundation had receded and “the earth was laid bare,” became ripe. The ceremony of cutting the first sheaf of dura was performed by the king, with the silex sickle=khepes.
While Osiris was thus directly associated with the produce of the earth there are also evidences that, just as Isis became identified with birth and life, her consort became the lord of death and of the underworld. Mysterious rites and human sacrifices seem to have been instituted in his honor. According to obscure myths Osiris himself had been foully murdered, his body cut into fourteen pieces and cast over the length and breadth of the land. His head was supposed to be preserved at Abydos, the chief centre of his worship, and shrines were erected over the other portions of his body. It will be a matter for further research to investigate whether the “mysteries of Osiris” did not include the dramatization of the death of Osiris, in which a human victim personified the god and was actually killed and dismembered.
It is, perhaps, worth noting here, as an analogy, how appropriately the ancient Mexican annual sacrifice of a youth, chosen among the most perfect, might have answered as a rendition of the drama of Osiris. The body of the victim was divided and the pieces distributed to a fixed number of priests and chieftains, who partook of them as sacred food. The head was preserved in the Great Temple itself, on the Tzompantli, and the large number of skulls seen there by the Spaniards constituted a proof of the great antiquity of the custom. The blood of the victim, poured upon seeds, seems to have been considered essential for bringing about the germination of the sacred shoots and typical of the union of the dual principles of nature and of life springing from death. Idols, formed of seeds moistened with human blood, were [pg 443] distributed to the participants in the ceremony. According to some authors this sacred paste, and not pieces of human flesh, constituted the consecrated food, eaten according to the prescribed ritual.
How far analogous rites were performed in Egypt remains to be seen; it is, at all events, certain that, by slow degrees, the cult of the dual principles of nature gave rise to the institution of strange unnatural rites, the original naïve meanings of which became obscured, debased or lost. While various localities of Egypt, notably Thebes and Abydos, appear to have become the birthplace of curious aberrations of the human intellect, there was one ancient and great centre of learning where monotheism and the knowledge of the fundamental scheme appear to have been preserved intact, namely, at Heliopolis, the ancient On or Anu of the North, named the “House of the Sun” by Jeremiah and “the Eye or Fountain of the Sun” by the Arabs. According to Mr. Wallis Budge, “its ruins cover an area three miles square ... the greatest and oldest Egyptian College or University for the education of the priesthood and laity stood here.... During the xxth dynasty the temple of Heliopolis was one of the largest and wealthiest of all Egypt and its staff was numbered by thousands. When Cambyses visited Egypt the glory of Heliopolis was well on the wane and, after the removal of the priesthood and sages of the temple to Alexandria, by Ptolemy II (B.C. 286), its downfall was well assured. When Strabo visited it (B.C. 24) the greater part of it was in ruins.... Heliopolis had a large population of Jews and it will be remembered that Joseph married the daughter of a priest of On (Annu).... Macrobius says that the Heliopolis of Syria or Baalbek, was founded by a body of priests who left the ancient city of Heliopolis of Egypt” (The Nile, p. 132).
Indirectly we learn the tenor of the doctrines and ideas held by the sages of Heliopolis at one period by the remarkable attempt to reform the religion of Egypt, carried out by their pupil, Amenhotep IV (about B.C. 1450). Evidently realizing, with his masters, the extent to which the ancient fundamental religion had become obscured and debased by the multiplication of images of the deity, and the institution of rival cults, which were shrouded in mystery and darkness, the young prince boldly made war against the priesthood of Amen-Ra and the cult of a “hidden god.”
Destroying the monstrous images which had originally been rebus figures only, and represented the supreme deity in partly [pg 444] human and animal form, he instituted the disk or circle as the simple and purer form under which the divinity was to be revered.118 Animated by the clear realization to what an extent the original communal or republican scheme of organization was being departed from by the artificial creation of a “divine” race of kings who claimed to be gods, he caused himself and his queen to be portrayed as simple mortals, and not as the deities Osiris and Isis. Choosing the sun as his emblem, this champion of pure light and open truth fought the Egyptian votaries of darkness. He erased the word Amen=hidden, from public monuments, changed his own name from Amenhotep to Chu-en-Aten=the brilliance or glory of the disk and founded a city also named Chu-aten, which was to be the centre of a new and reformed state. It seems evident that this was instituted on the familiar archaic plan and that the so-called “heresy of Amenhotep” was but an attempt, backed by the sages and philosophers of Heliopolis, to abolish the artificialities and abuses which had come into existence and destroyed the order of the state and the harmony of the primitive plan. It is well known that gradually Amenhotep's successors were obliged to yield to the hostility of the priesthood of the “hidden god” and that these, in turn, erased or defaced all images of the disk or aten within their reach.
Ineffectual though the grand attempt had been to reorganize state and religion and reëstablish republican principles, on the original plan, the knowledge of the original scheme seems to have been preserved intact during the following centuries, by the sages and philosophers of Heliopolis, by whom the primitive set of ideas seems to have been gradually developed into an abstract philosophical system. Reminding the reader that Plato spent “thirteen years in Egypt, in gaining an insight into the mysterious doctrines and priest-lore of the sacerdotal caste,” I also draw attention to the passage in his “Timæus,” in which Critias makes the statement [pg 445] that when Plato's ideal republic ... was being discoursed upon, he was reminded, to his surprise, of the account of a state given to the Greek sage, Solon, by the priests of Saïs, and perceived how, “in most respects, the republic described coincided with Solon's statements.” It is indeed striking how clearly we can recognize, in Plato's republic, the underlying, primitive, universal scheme in this case, highly developed, elaborated, transfigured and transformed into the philosophical ideal of a great intellect.
Before demonstrating which of the main features of Plato's cosmogony and ideal republic we have found actually carried out in practice, let us briefly refer to the most ancient descriptions of the primitive government of Greece, preserved in the Timæus and Critias, where the conversations held, by Solon, with the priests of Saïs are recorded. Solon (about 594 B.C.) on his arrival (at Saïs) “was very honorably received; and especially, on his inquiring about ancient affairs of those priests who possessed superior knowledge in such matters, he perceived that neither himself nor any one of the Greeks (so to speak) had any antiquarian knowledge at all.... One of their extremely ancient priests said to Solon: ‘you (Greeks) are all youths in intelligence, for you hold no ancient opinions derived from remote tradition nor any system of discipline that can boast of a hoary old age.... In this our country, ... the most ancient things are said to be here preserved ... and all the noble, great or otherwise distinguished achievements, performed either by ourselves, by you or elsewhere, of which we have heard the report, all these have been engraved in our temples in very remote times and preserved to the present day. The annals of our own city (Saïs) have been preserved eight thousand years in our sacred writings ... your state has a priority over ours of a thousand years.... I will briefly describe the law and more illustrious actions of those states which have existed nine thousand years ...’ ” (Timæus). It is interesting at this point to recall also the familiar statements made by the priests of Saïs to Solon, concerning the immense antiquity of the human race and the “multitude and variety of destructions which have been and will be undergone by the human race ... after which nations become young again, as at first, knowing nothing of the events of ancient times” (Timæus, v).
Referring the reader to the original text I merely point out here that the priest of Saïs, referring to the sacred writings themselves, [pg 446] assigned to remotest antiquity the principle of distribution and arrangement on which the state had originally been founded and established. In the Critias the description of the Athenian state, which “had been founded nine thousand” years before, contains the following particulars which will appear familiar to the reader. “To the gods was once locally allotted the whole earth.... Obtaining a country agreeable to them by just allotment, they chose regions for their habitations.... Different gods received by lot different regions.... Hephaestus and Athene, a brother and sister, both received one region as their common allotment ... their temple was built on the Acropolis ... whose northern and southern slopes were respectively associated with separate winter and summer residences.” The population was divided into classes and each caste occupied a fixed place of residence. “The outer parts, down the flanks (of the Acropolis) were inhabited by craftsmen and husbandmen who tilled the neighboring land; the warrior-classes lived separately, by themselves, in the more elevated parts around the temple of Athene and Hephaestus, which they had formed, as it were, into the garden of a single dwelling by encircling it with one enclosure” (The Critias, vi). “... On this site was a single fountain which furnished every part with abundant water....” “The ‘guardians of the state’ were the ‘leaders’ of the Greeks and as to their number they paid special attention that they should always have the same number of men and women that might serve in war, the whole being about twenty thousand.”
In the description given, in the Critias, of the state of Atlantis, the identical features recur, but are more fully described. In the centre of the island of Atlantis stood a mountain, surrounded by a plain, which was ultimately made square. The mountain was the residence of a pair of mythical lovers, consisting of a god and of a mortal woman, and became the birthplace of their offspring, “a divine race of kings.” “The god ... with his divine power, agreeably adorned the centre of the island, causing two fountains of water to shoot upwards from beneath the earth, one cold and the other hot, and making every variety of food to spring abundantly from the earth.” The central hill, from which thus proceeded all life and festivity, was at first “circularly enclosed, the land and sea being formed into alternate zones, greater and less, two out of land and three out of sea, from the centre of the island all equally distant.” The ten kings, born of the “divine union, [pg 447] lived each in his own district and city, and ruled supreme over his people. The government and commonwealth in each case was, by the injunction of the god, according to the laws which were handed down. The latter were inscribed on a column of orichalcum which was deposited in the centre of the island, in the temple of the god, where the ten kings originally assembled every fifth year. A fire burned near the column and a bull was sacrificed at its base, after which a sacred cup was filled with its blood and this was poured into the fire by way of purifying the column” (Critias, vii-xvi).
The above mention of a column is of interest when it is realized that, in historical times, the laws of Solon were actually inscribed on a square wooden pillar which was made to revolve or turn and was placed on the Acropolis. The presence of a revolving pillar on the Acropolis, the sacred centre of the Athenian state, is, moreover, curiously in keeping with the conception of axial energy set forth by Plato and awakens the desire to learn from Greek scholars what relationship, if any, there was between the Sanscrit aksa=axle or axis, the Greek akra (akris=summit, akros=most high, supreme, akrisios=mountain-top god) and the Egyptian ak=the Centre, and hak=a king; and whether the word polis=city was connected with polos=the pole-star, an axis, pivot or pole, from polein=to turn, and may be interpreted as the equivalent of the Egyptian An and Annu. It would also be important to learn whether the name of the principal ancient god of Greece, Apollo, who was revered under the form of a column at Delphi, can also be connected with the verb polein or pelein=to turn, as well as the name Polias i. e. the goddess protecting the city, a surname for Minerva (Athene) at Athens, where she was worshipped at one time as the protecting divinity of the Acropolis. The title Poliuchus, “protecting the city,” occurs as a surname of several divinities and particularly of Minerva Chalchioecus, “of the brazen house,” at Sparta and Athens. It is instructive likewise to compare the Greek words for axis=axon, and polis=city, with Helice, the name for Ursa Major and for a town in Arcadia, with the Egyptian Annu, An or On, the names of capitals, and the Egyptian word an=that which turns around. It will be for Greek and Egyptian scholars to enlighten us as to whether the Egyptian an and the Greek polis are synonyms; in which connection I draw their attention to the following suggestive passage of the Critias (vii).... “Yet before we narrate this we must briefly warn you not to [pg 448] be surprised at hearing Hellenic names given to barbarians ... and the cause of this you shall now hear. Solon made an investigation into the power of names and found that the early Egyptians, who committed these facts to writing, transferred these names into their own language; and he again, receiving the meaning of each name, introduced it by writing into our language.” While, on one hand, it is certain that the Egyptian astronomer-priests associated the pole star with the words An, Anu, Anubis, on the other, the following passages from Plato's works clearly demonstrate his views concerning axial rotation.119 A fresh interest is undoubtedly added to Plato's philosophy when it is regarded as the possible result of the thirteen years spent by him with the Egyptian priesthood, who may possibly have confided to him the entire sum of their ancient philosophy and accumulated store of knowledge, and who certainly seem to have imposed upon him the reticence and obscurity noticeable in the Republic, the Critias and the Timæus.
To those who have followed my investigation of the ancient state organization and cosmical conceptions of the ancient Egyptians, and noted the interpretation given to the pyramid and the fact that Amenophis instituted the disk as the image of the Supreme Being, the following detached extracts from Plato's Timæus will appear [pg 449] familiar and full of fresh significance. “To discover the Father and Creator of this universe (also called the heaven or the world) or his work is indeed difficult; and when discovered it is impossible to reveal him to mankind at large.... The composing (or framing) Artificer constituted the universe from entire elements of fire, water, air and earth and ... considering that it would thus be a whole animal.... He gave it also a figure becoming and allied to its nature; and to the animal destined to comprehend all others within itself that figure as the most becoming which includes within itself every sort of figure whatever. Hence he fashioned it in the shape of a sphere, perfectly round, having its centre everywhere equally distant from the bounding extremities.... He assigned to it a motion peculiar to itself ... making the world to turn constantly on itself and on same point, he gave it a circular motion ... he assigned to it a motion peculiar to itself, being that of all the seven kinds of motion.... As for the soul, he fixed it in the middle, extended it throughout the whole and likewise surrounded it with its entire surface ... and so, causing a circle to revolve in a circle, he established the world as one substantive, solitary object.... Let the universe be called heaven or the world or by any other name it usually receives.... The soul of this universe [pg 450] ... being composed of three parts ... being interwoven throughout from the middle to the very extremities of space and covering it even all around externally, though at the same time herself revolving within herself, originated the divine commencement of an unceasing and wise life throughout all time.... Time ... was generated with the universe.... Time ... an eternal image on the principles of numbers ... the perfect number of time completes a perfect year ... for this purpose ... were formed such of the stars as moved circularly through the universe....”